Inquiry about CHILDES

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Nobuyo (and Info-CHILDES),

     Does CHILDES have one or two syllables?  This is a question I have often been asked.  For me, either pronunciation is really fine.  Personally, I always use the one-syllable version.  I like the sort of crazy idea that it is the children themselves that own the database.  I guess, in my mind, it is really CHILD'S and I am thinking of "child" as a generic for all children, as in "the layman's guide to X" or "the child's database".
     I try to further defend this somewhat idiosyncratic pronunciation through reference to the medieval term "childe" as in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron where the final "e" is just silent.  That form meant "a young man who is a candidate for knighthood" and my understanding of Middle English pronunciation is very weak and it is possible that this final -e is not silent after all.
     The alternative two-syllable pronunciation might seem plausible to some.  Here, there are two options.  The form I have usually heard rhymes with "Candace".    For example, the name "Candace" has a final syllable of this type.  But the spelling of "Candace", "jaundice", or  "poultice" is so radically different from CHILDES, that I find the two-syllable pronunciation of a word ending -es a bit far-fetched.  I have also occasionally heard a two-syllabic pronunciation in which the final -es is intended to parallel the final syllable of "churches".  However, to my ear, that version tends to violated English morphophonotactics.  To my ear, the weak -es ending is only licensed when the stem ends in a sibilant or affricate.

-- Brian MacWhinney

On Nov 6, 2011, at 4:29 AM, Nobuyo Fukaya wrote:

> Dear Prof. MacWhinney,
>  
> I am Nobuyo Fukaya and a member of IASCL.
>  
> I would like to ask a trivial but important question.
> I’m wondering how to pronounce the name “CHILDES”.
> An introductory book written in Japanese says that the pronunciation is childs (like a regular plural form), but I have heard some lecturers pronouncing it as ‘---des’.
> Now I am working on the development of English wh-questions, and am making a presentation at the English Linguistic Society of Japan this month.
> I would be happy, if you let me know the fixed pronunciation.
>  
>  
> Sincerely yours,
>  
> Nobuyo Fukaya
> nobuyo96 at green@ocn.ne.jp

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